Blood may be thicker than water but heartstrings are the ties that bind. A stepmother's blog about parenting, raising a daughter conceived through IVF, and navigating the wilds of the SAHM after years as an academic gypsy and aspiring writer.

We Had A Five Year Run

Let me preface this by saying that I began blogging in 2007; I’ve blogged hundreds if not thousands of pages and have had the opportunity to be buoyed through a difficult time by the IF community. My blog has evolved as my life has evolved.

I began this as a writing exercise, really — back when I left my job for a sabbatical that would actually become a leave of absence — and then my resignation — I came to what I had always known — the page, to work things out.

I didn’t always know why I was blogging — but what I know is that this community, its support, and this blog in both of its incarnations have been a lifeline for me through what was the heartbreak of infertility and the overwhelming new terrain of motherhood.

As a writer we always, in graduate school, would ask those questions — about what it meant to be a memoirist — what responsibility you had to the truth, to your readers — to the other people who share your narrative — because it’s their story too.

Through the evolution of this blog I came to a different place in my life than when I’d begun — as a writer, stepmother, member of a blended family — mother to a newborn… now toddler; in the interim the blogging world and the social media world became a completely different place, things moving at hyper-speed. I have never been sure what my role in this new media world was — have always felt like an old dog wrestling with a new trick.

Today X, who I will now refer to by a different set of initials, SW (for sister-wife — though we are not in a polygamous family we are in a blended family and in some ways she’s become closer to me than family) texted me to let me know she had found my blog. We talked about it. She was gracious, though distressed as anyone would be if you came across the blog unbeknownst to you — and I was immediately reminded of the responsibility we have to one another — even when writing our own narratives.

I came to this place mostly to chronicle the frustrations, perhaps not as much to laud the successes — and there have been many.

Today, for the first time in years — seriously, I barely get the traffic anymore to warrant positive comments let alone negative ones — I received a really nasty personal comment on my Halloween post. I don’t think these events are related — but just in the same way some faceless stranger’s words can seem hurled at me and sting — it isn’t lost on me that kind of impact it has when someone who knows us, and loves us, writes about us.

I’ve written, as those of you who have followed this blog (all two of you 😉 ) much more extensively about my mother and my family — and I have to spend some time really thinking about what to do with the material I’ve written here — and how I would feel if my mother were to read the things I’ve written — regardless of the blanket permission she’s always granted me.

I’m in a strange place because while I stand by every word I’ve written on this blog — and am proud of my craft — I am keenly aware of how we brush up against one another in this world — and what responsibility we have to hold one another’s hearts and be as gentle as we can be.

In the solipsism of writing my own narrative I didn’t take enough care, and for that, I am sorry, both to SW who has given me one of the greatest gifts of my life — the mothering of W — and to anyone else who may see their reflection here (or perhaps not see your reflection at all) and have been hurt by me — I am so deeply, profoundly sorry.

This blog will undoubtedly be changed. I am assuming that this is now a room that people will visit and leave with intentions that are different than they may have been before — people who know me peripherally or not at all, people with whom I’ve shared little more than a smile, handshake or polite conversation.

It’s all here and you are welcome.

To my longtime readers: I love you and would not have made it to this balanced, happy, solid place without you.

XO

Pam

Advertisements

Share this:

§ 11 Responses to We Had A Five Year Run

Oh my gosh, I saw your headline and clicked away 3 times because I did not want to read that you were done blogging. So glad to read that you’ll keep writing. I am sure it is really hard having someone look back at your words from months and years ago, especially those written in anger, but perhaps it will help to bring you one step closer to publishing this part of your life, as I hope you will at some point.

I REALLY hope you keep writing. I would be sad to lose you completely, your relative silence in the past months has been hard enough. I hope you find a kind of particiation here that feels right for you.

Oh, echoing Esperanza too: please keep writing! You inspire and touch so many writers out there who drink in your every word. Blogs evolve and change but your excellent writing illuminates everything you ponder.

Oh, I so hope you keep writing here too. I think you have a beautiful and truthful way of writing and I have admired that so much. I understand the tightrope that has to be walked at times, but your blog is so special and has taught me so much about writing. Since I have had no formal education in writing I feel so inadequate at times, and so I blunder along. Your encouraging nature and stories have helped me understand so much.

I had a real laugh this morning when you reminded me of how, waaay back in the day — pre-Z and O — we would sit in our homes – a half a country apart — and blog basically to an audience of each other. I remember having the sense that we would each start our mornings in our kitchens, reading the other’s most recent post and commenting, then getting down to the business of writing a new post for the other to comment on. Remember when he had the time, passion and inclination to write multiple posts a day? We both saw our blogs grow in content and readership, though yours was infinitely superior — you managed to turn a blog about everyday life — whether it was IF, pregnancy, parenting, families, food, love — into a true literary work. I was just able to string together profanity in an amusing manner. Oddly enough, we both had the unsettling experience of having our blogs discovered, though SW sounds to be a way classier act than the clan of Gymbor-idiots that piled on poor old Tobacco Brunette (is it weird that I miss her like a person? I feel a little Tori Amos crazy for even having that attchment, but there it is..)

The point I’m hoping to make here – unsuccessfully so far — is that however things change, I selfishly hope they will continue in some fashion in which your long-time faithful readers and friends can continue to participate. Your blog and the deeply personal way in which you’ve explored so many topics and issues has touched the lives of many individuals. Sharing your struggles has provided company and clarity to the many people who’ve begun reading a post about you…only to find themselves in all your pretty words. The ending of bloodsigns would be a loss – for me anyway – on the level of the cancellation of Arrested Development. Big, in other words.

On a more personal note, yours is truly the most important adult friendship I have made and while it will no doubt continue regardless of the direction bloodsigns takes, this blog helps bridge the distance and certainly strengthens the bond. I know I’ve said this before, but I was truly amazed during my visit with how easy it was to settle into hanging out. Like we’d been friends since childhood. Driving around your old neighborhood with Z asleep in the backseat…seeing the settings for so many of your stories…long comfortable silences…it was like I’d known you since gradeschool.

Well, Jesus Christ, this sounds like a love letter, which I guess it sort of is. You and bloodsigns were with me through my decision to try IVF; a ruptured ectopic and an ICU stay; a successful IVF cycle and a pregnancy; the birth of my son and the diagnosis of his heart defect; his open heart surgery (for the love of god); my jump into working motherhood; the terrible loss i’ve gone through in the last year. And all the little shit in between. And I know I’m not the only one who’s found comfort and a kind heart on this blog. A community has grown around the sharing of your stories and I am so grateful to be a member of it and thankful for all you’ve given here.

I know that you’ll proceed in the manner that is best for you and your family. And as long as you keep writing — even if it’s limited to short prose on the back of junkmail in a washable (always washable) Burnt Orange Crayola, I can respect that. XO

I password protected the blog for right now for those of you reading. I expect it Will be back when the dust settles.The thought that 40-year-old women can be as cruel as 12-year-old girls… I remember it now. Boy do I.

I was worried, too, when I saw your title that you were going to stop blogging. I hope you do keep writing here. I’m a stepmom, too, and there have been a lot of parellels over the years to our lives, although things between households have taken a turn for the more separated lately. Your blog has made me feel less alone. Thanks for that.

Yikes, I was catching up on some blog reading & clicked on a few of your older posts & kept coming up with “page not found” — I was starting to panic. ; ) I know only too well how it feels to have your blog discovered & “outed,” (albeit not by someone as prominent in my life & my posts as SW has been in yours). I hope you can smooth things over with her. And I hope you keep writing. I would so miss your thoughtful posts if you disappeared altogether from the blogosphere. (As Lori LL says above, clearly, you have more than 2 regular readers!)